From Subhuman to Human Kind: Implicit Bias, Racial Memory, and Black Males in Schools and Society

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that implicit racial bias regarding black males is a manifestation of a long trajectory of Western racial memory and anti-blackness where black males have been considered subhuman or as human kinds. The author draws from theological, scientific, and social science literature to illustrate how racial discourses have historically constructed black males as subhuman or as human kinds (Hacking, 1995). The central argument of this paper is that current practices in schools and society that engage in racial bias are tied to durable racial discourses of power that have consistently rendered black males as feared and dangerous.

Author Bio

Anthony L. Brown, Ph.D., is an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Texas at Austin. His work focuses on the formation of race in school curriculum and educational and social science discourse—specifically concerning the experiences of African Americans. His work has been published in Teachers College Record, Harvard Educational Review, Race Ethnicity and Education, and the Journal of Educational Policy.

Notes

1 Where the “Negro” is referred to in a generic sense, the word is often a code for “black male.” For example, late-19th-century discourse in the sciences and popular culture talked about the Negro population collectively, but then referred to their temperament and proclivity toward raping white women. Therefore, discourse about black people as sex-crazed brutes in fact referred to black men.